In many email systems, when a user receives an email message, the user is provided an option that permits the user to read the received email message. Typically, if the user chooses to read the received email message, then the received email message is displayed to the user in an email read window. In many email systems, when a recipient receives an email message, much of the standard header information is generally hidden from the recipient. Thus, a recipient often only sees a sender's name and/or email address, a subject line, and names and/or email addresses of other recipients if, for example, the email message is courtesy copied (cc) to other recipients or sent to multiple recipients.
From the email read window, the user is usually provided a number of options including the option to delete the email message, reply to the email message, print the email message, or forward the email message to a third person. When the user chooses to forward the received email message to a third person, the full header information of the received email message is normally removed, and a truncated header is placed in the message. The truncated header typically includes the name and email address of the original sender of the message, the subject line, the date of forwarding, and the person forwarding the email. Thus, the truncated header removes much of the information that is originally present in the full header information (e.g., return path, intermediate hops, date, time, content class, content type, subject, object linking and embedding (OLE) protocols used, multi-purpose Internet mail extensions (MIME), date sent, message identifier (ID), attachments, thread topic, thread index, transport neutral encapsulated format (TNEF) information, thread index, sender name, sender email address, reply-to address, content-transfer-encoding information, date received, time received, recipient names, recipient email addresses, attachment type, file name of attachment, etc.). The truncation of much of the full header, therefore, simplifies the header information.
Unfortunately, the truncated header is insufficient for certain purposes, such as reporting email abuse or tracing email for security purposes. Thus, when a recipient of an email wishes to report email abuse or wishes to trace an email, a systems administrator or security personnel typically needs the full header information of the received email.
For these types of situations where the full header information is needed, different options for viewing the email message are selected until the full header information is visible. Once the full header information is visible, the user typically has no other option but to copy the full header information into a buffer, and manually paste the full header information into an email message to send to security personnel or a systems administrator.
The manual cutting and pasting of the full header information is an inconvenient process that is also prone to human error. There is, therefore, a need in the art to address this deficiency.